Tag: corezoid

We use Brightpearl inventory management software for our e-commerce business. Here’s another post from the Brightpearl Automation series, where we share our experience of business process automation with Corezoid cloud OS.

Novaposhta is the leader in express delivery in Ukraine. Most e-commerce businesses here are using their services. They also have a documented API, which is open to all customers after registration. We use it to track sent package states and switch sales order statuses accordingly.

Novaposhta’s API also allows registering packages before sending them to get a tracking reference and make sure order recipient data is correct. We’ll focus on that a bit later.

Novaposhta tracking and shipped order sms notification

When a sales order is shipped, we want to notify our customer about this event and start following package states until it is received. We used to send text notifications via native Clickatell integration and then manually check parcel state at our primary carrier Nova Poshta website. Naturally, our managers were doing parcel state check on rare occasions. Therefore, we were not able to identify orders that needed special attention soon enough. The thing is, cash-on-delivery orders are most frequent here in Ukraine because of an immature credit card payments market. So we have to track which order hasn’t been received yet and remind a customer to do it.

Here’s what we’ve done to tackle this problem. When a sales order (SO) is shipped, our Corezoid automation:

sends an SMS to customer mobile number via Unisender SMS gateway, which is two times cheaper than Clickatell (for local Ukrainian mobile numbers) and at the same time is more reliable;

posts the SMS text, including parcel tracking number, as an order note for future reference;

changes order status to ‘Arrived at warehouse’ when the parcel has arrived at the destination warehouse (our clients usually choose delivery to their local carrier’s office);

changes order status to ‘Delivered’ when the customer has received the package or to ‘Completed’ if the order has already been completely paid.

It took hours to check manually package state at our carrier website for each order before the automation. Now we don’t have to worry about it.

Our client’s Shopify store connects to Brightpearl ERP with it’s internal app. It syncs inventory and Shopify orders and can download products created in Shopify. Occasionally, orders aren’t downloaded to Brightpearl. This situation is very rare but quite annoying. Unfortunately, BP doesn’t have built-in notifications for this case. So we’ve created it.

Use case: we want to connect MailChimp to Corezoid in order to build automations based on a new subscriber event. For example, send them welcome email series or sync them with another database.Problem: MailChimp sends webhooks not in JSON format that is supported by Corezoid.

Solution: use Zapier which is already connected to Mailchimp to send JSON webhooks to Corezoid.

Ecommerce stores normally send various sms notifications to their customers. These include: ‘your order has been shipped’, ‘we couldn’t reach you by phone, please call back’, ‘your payment has been received successfully’ etc. This is a good way to communicate crucial information to your customers, especially if they don’t rely so much on email, as does our typical customer here in Ukraine.

I’ve been using Brightpearl ERP since the mid-2014 at my online store Alisa.ua. It’s a great SAAS ERP for e-commerce that literally changed everything about how we do things and significantly improved our processes.

However, there’re still a lot of stuff in Brightpearl we’d like to improve or completely automate. For example, we wanted to integrate it with our local package carrier Nova Poshta. Also, we had a depressing experience with BP’s native sms gateway Clickatell. BP team have told me that they don’t have plans to add other gateways. So I started looking for solutions… And I found one.

We now use Corezoid to build Brightpearl automation workflows. It’s a service that lets you create your own applications connecting various apps via API. You do it by creating visual process scheme so you don’t have to write code (maybe you’ll have to copy/paste a few lines of JavaScript). Naturally, it’s a cloud platform, plus it’s cheap, runs on Amazon servers and allows non-programmers to quickly make necessary adjustments on the go.

Here’s what we’ve implemented with Corezoid so far (updated 05/19/16):

Brightpearl automation services

We now offer Brightpearl automation services for ecommerce business owners. If you’re interested in one of the patches I described here or some custom development, please drop me a line at stas@99rabbits.com. You’ll be amazed how these automation flows can streamline your operations and how cost-effective they are.